


lost in love with you, it's a pretty thing

by elsinorerose, Jade_Sabre



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Pining, Romance, idiots being idiots, what happens when a high wisdom score and a low self esteem collide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:35:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25208563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elsinorerose/pseuds/elsinorerose, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Sabre/pseuds/Jade_Sabre
Summary: Jester is quiet for a long minute. The sound of the ship rocking and creaking around them is like a lullaby."Why are you always so nice to me?" she whispers at last.Jester and Caleb talk. Set during episode 100.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 38
Kudos: 324





	lost in love with you, it's a pretty thing

There’s a quiet knock on Caleb’s door. "You awake?" comes Jester’s small voice from the other side.

"Ah," Caleb says, blinking back from the edge of sleep, rubbing his face and untangling his legs from the blankets, _"ja,_ ja."

Jester lets herself in, slipping quietly through the door and closing it again behind her. She’s wearing her leather corset over a sleep dress. Since the attack that nearly killed Fjord over a week ago, she’s taken to sleeping in her armor, uncomfortable as it might be. 

"Can we talk?" she murmurs. Her tail is twisted anxiously around her left leg. "I — I couldn’t sleep, and — you always..." She blushes ever so slightly. "You’re good to talk to."

Caleb stares at her, his brain catching up to the fact that she's in his room. Did he invite her in? No. And yet she's here, and trusting, and beautiful, and he should probably do something to send her back to her own room and her own bed or literally anywhere that isn't with him.

Instead he gapes at her, shakes his head to snap out of it, and says, _"Ja,_ ja. Sure. Come — come in. Sit," he adds belatedly, gesturing to the rickety chair at the tiny writing desk and feeling like an idiot.

She crosses the cramped cabin, and instead of taking the chair she sits down next to him on the bed without so much as a by-your-leave. 

"Fjord says we’ll get there tomorrow," she says, referring to Rumblecusp. "If the dragon turtle doesn’t catch up with us first." She fiddles with a bit of loose thread trailing from the sleeve of her nightgown and doesn’t look up.

Caleb's brain shuts down. He attempts a hard restart, but upon regaining some semblance of coherent thought he discovers that, indeed, she is still sitting next to him. He takes a breath, long enough to _ignore that_ and to focus on her words. Yes, focus on her, and forget himself.

"Indeed," he says, turning his head to see her a little better. "And...how are you feeling about this?"

Jester’s cheeks are a deep pink, fading to violet at the edges. "Terrified," she mumbles.

He frowns. "Why? I mean, I know — a lot of people, a lot to pull off, of course we're all nervous — but you can do this."

"Maybe." She tugs at the thread, unraveling it a little more. "But...something could go wrong, or...or there could be dangers we don’t know about, you know? It seems like everywhere we go we end up getting into trouble."

"Well," and he looked to the ceiling, accessing and dismissing a hundred false reassurances in a second, "that's true."

"Fjord _died_ last week." Jester’s voice has gone even quieter. "And — we were doing something really important, you know, we were helping stop a war, and...maybe that’s an okay thing to die for along the way." For the first time since coming in, she glances up at Caleb, nose wrinkled. "Do you know what I mean? We go into these things ready for the danger, because we’ve all decided that it’s worth it. To stop a war, or save people, or serve the greater good. That’s worth risking death for."

He catches his breath, focused on _her,_ and for all her chaos and trickery and silliness she is so good. Too good, for him; for he can never, ever be as good as she is, right now, saying these things.

No matter that he agrees — and in the space of his agreement, he senses where she is going with this. "You're right," is all he says, quietly.

"So..." Jester bites her lip. "So what am I doing, leading all you guys here? Someplace where you could all die for no good reason, just for the sake of a stupid..."

She trails off. Her hands are trembling.

"No," he says immediately, as many times as it takes his mind to stop saying it and move onto the next point, "no, no. That is not it at all. That is not — hey," he says, not brave enough to reach for her and tilt her chin up to look at him, hoping she'll hear the call in his voice alone, "that is not what we are doing."

"This isn't like saving the world," Jester mumbles. "It's not _important._ If one of you gets hurt — if one of you — " She swallows. "If you _die_ just so I could throw a party for my god..."

"I mean," he says, knowing before he says it that it won't quite work, still staring at her in the hopes that she might meet his gaze, "we sort of almost did that already for Caduceus. Turnabout is fair play."

She looks at him. Her eyes sparkle with unshed tears. "We were saving his family," she reminds Caleb with the slightest quirk of a smile. "Not...this."

"I mean," he says, hoping to carry on the levity, "the Traveler is practically family, to you, so..."

"You guys are my family," she corrects him gently.

"Well," he says, letting the words lapse as his shoulders slump, and he glances away from her in turn, because of course they are her family and of course they are _his_ family — but they also aren't, and he isn't, because _family_ still sounds like something for other people, just beyond his reach. He sighs and says, not quite able to look at her, "It's important to you, yeah?"

Jester is quiet for a long minute. The sound of the ship rocking and creaking around them is like a lullaby.

"Why are you always so nice to me?" she whispers at last.

Caleb freezes, as solidly as if she'd hit him with a Hellish Rebuke, and the cold burns against his skin.

"You always..." Jester drops her gaze to her hands. "You always...you’re always so nice."

"Well," he manages, "we are...family. And at least — I mean I know not all families are this way, but in my — " no, no, he doesn't want to talk about his parents, not to _her_ " — in families people are nice. To each other. Usually."

"You’re nicer to me than anyone." A beat. "You’re nicer than my mom."

He narrows his eyes in suspicion. "I don't think that's true."

"You make time for me." Her voice is barely above a whisper. "You make sure that I’m...that I’m seen. And listened to. You make sure I feel important."

He opens his mouth, closes it, and says simply, helplessly, "Jester..."

"She didn’t do a very good job of that when I was growing up," Jester mumbles. "I didn’t...I don’t think I really realized that until...you."

"Your mother," he says, and how dare he say anything, what is he _doing,_ and he shifts away from her on the bed, desperately seeking space, a breath of fresh air to clear his head, "was...busy, I'm sure. She had to support you. My father — " and he doesn't want to talk about his parents, but doesn't know what else to do " — you know, he was a soldier, he wasn't home much, when I was little. Couldn't always make time for me. But when he was home he made sure I knew — " his voice starts to fail, echoes of an old scream clawing up his throat.

He stops and coughs, leans against the wall, away from her. "I am sure your mother wanted you to feel important," he says, and this much he believes, though he doesn't doubt she failed sometimes.

Jester smiles at last. "She did," she murmurs. "You do too."

She stands now and moves to leave the room, but hesitates at the door. Something is keeping her from leaving — words unsaid, maybe, worries unspoken or silent longings.

But she's leaving. That's good. That's very good. He draws his legs up, hunches against the wall, and repeats this to himself over and over again; but he's watching her, can't stop staring; and the word _wait_ is on the tip of his tongue.

Finally Jester turns. Her expression is as vulnerable as Caleb has ever seen it; but there’s something else there too, a quiet curiosity. Her lips part silently, a moment passes, and then she asks — quite matter-of-factly, like she’s requesting an ordinary favor — "Can I give you a kiss?"

"I, uh," don't say _ja,_ don't even make a noise that could be construed as _ja,_ whatever he does, he must not resort to that verbal tic, and his entire being is consumed by this, "ah, that is — why?" His voice goes high and creaky on the question, his head tilting, eyes squinting, and when he's done talking his mouth is still hanging open in surprise.

Jester blushes. "Um. I don't know. Does there have to be a reason?"

"I mean, usually there is," he says, still squinting, leaning against the wall in the desperate hope that it will swallow him whole.

"I..." Jester fiddles with her sleeve again. "If you don't want..."

Silence.

"I can go," she blurts out. "I'll go. Sorry."

She turns and opens the door to leave.

Oh, she's upset, and that’s an understatement. She's upset, and part of him argues _it's her fault, what a ridiculous thing to suggest_ and part of him argues back _she was just asking, you didn't have to look at her like she was made of sea slugs_ and another voice chimes in _good job, you've made her sad_ and another adds _you were always going to make her sad_ and another doesn't speak so much as radiate disapproval of the entire situation.

There is no fixing this. She has asked, he hasn't accepted, and now she's leaving. There is no alternative. He watches her go.

Except he also opens his mouth and says, "Well, if you want — "

She turns back.

"Really?" she murmurs, even more flushed than before, all pink and violet and blue.

 _No,_ screams most of the rational voices in his mind, but he is looking at her, helpless, and the part of himself that is very good at lying says it will be all right, she can give him a quick peck on the cheek and say thank you for being so nice and then go to bed happy and everything will be fine.

His mouth moves several times, and finally he is reduced to the only thing he has to offer. "If you want," he repeats.

Jester shuts the door again, and she walks over to the bed, slowly, her tail flicking back and forth behind her like it does when she's nervous or excited or — or —

"Do you want to stand up?" she asks, the corner of her mouth twitching.

"You are short," he says, which has absolutely nothing to do with anything but the thought of moving from his safe place on the bed (and the possibility, remote but not nonexistent, that he might yet be sucked into the hull and not have to do anything) makes his legs seize up. The best he can do is awkwardly turn his head and present his cheek for kissing, which feels more than a little ridiculous and also is not, he suspects, going to satisfy her.

(She does look pretty, he thinks, watching her out of the corner of his eye. Very pretty. Heart-achingly pretty, and he loves her too much to let her do this and is far too selfish to stop her.)

Very gently, standing over him, Jester takes Caleb's face in her hands, those artist's fingers gliding softly over his cheekbones and jawline, and tilts his face up to hers. For a moment she just looks at him, her breath catching in her throat — and then she leans in, leans down, and presses her lips to his.

A calm, rational voice in his head observes that in fact attempting to divert her to his cheek did not work, but that the feel of her fingers on his jaw was not unpleasant at all and the slow turn of his head to hers had offered plenty of time to memorize every centimeter of her expression in the last perfect moment before one or the other of them ruined everything.

The rational voice continues its catalogue of the situation (lips, soft, full; skin, cooler than his, but he knew that; brush of hair against his nose, slightly tickly) while the rest of him freezes, stuck between bending all of his will into not claiming the kiss, not kissing her in turn, in letting her decide what and where and how much; and wanting, strangely, to cry.

Jester makes a small, stifled noise through her nose — and then she parts her lips, clumsily, like she's not sure what to do, and he stops breathing. She tilts her head, slanting her mouth against Caleb's, while her hands slide up to tangle her fingers into his hair.

"Mmmf," she sighs, hot against his skin, and then she pulls back, maybe to take a breath, maybe to adjust the angle before she moves in again — or maybe to stare at him and wonder why he's not kissing her back.

Her hands are in his hair, he observes. This is not a kiss on the cheek, or a sweet peck on the lips. Her hands are in his hair and she is looking at him as if she wants him to kiss her. She asked to kiss him, but what she meant was, _can we kiss?_

Well, they've come this far. But while he doesn't close his eyes he can't meet her gaze as he leans forward, just a little, tilts his head, just enough, and waits for her lips to come back to his.

This time her kiss is less hesitant, less afraid. She kisses him with the same kind of enthusiasm he has seen her display when dancing, or flinging spells in the middle of battle, or running gaily from the scene of her latest crime. It's a kiss that, for all it's impossible and incongruous, should be accompanied by Jester's own personal brand of wild laughter and frenzied mischief. She kisses as though she's spinning, arms outstretched, beneath a starry sky.

He shouldn't, he thinks, as his lips move against hers, as she draws him into the dance, be kissing her like this. He most definitely should not tentatively place a hand to her cheek, feel her lips stutter against his in response. And when she sighs, and leans her cheek against his hand, and her grip on his hair tightens as she pulls him closer, and his entire body suddenly feels as though he could simply melt into her; as he begins to match her intensity with his own; well, he definitely shouldn’t be doing— _that._

Moments — or centuries, the slow ticking of seconds in the back of his mind stretched to contain every contented sigh, every surprised hum — later, Jester finally breaks the kiss with a little gasp. Her hands are on his shoulders now, and she stares down at him like she's never seen him before.

"Holy _shit,"_ she murmurs, wide-eyed. "I...I didn't know it was like _that."_

"Ah," he says, and he gives an embarrassed shrug, and his hand lingers on her cheek because he finds he's incapable of moving it, and he stares at the little bell on her left horn because if he allows himself to think about literally anything else he is probably going to break and set the boat on fire.

Jester lets out something between a sigh and a laugh, and a tiny gleam lights up her eyes. "I should've started kissing you _ages_ ago, Cayleb."

"I do not think that would have been a good idea," he says, and winces the moment the words have left his mouth. But his hand stays on her cheek, unwilling to banish the illusion of happiness entirely.

And then she lets go of his shoulders, and his hand falls away.

"You don't think you're a good person," she says quietly. The gleam has faded from her eyes. "You think...maybe no one should love you, or kiss you. But you're wrong."

She drops a kiss to his forehead, and then without a word she turns and leaves the room, her nightgown swishing gently around her bare heels before she's gone.

All the tension in his body leaves him in a rush, and he slides down the wall, limp, until he's flat on the bed.

And he turns on his side. And douses the light. And stares at the wall of the cabin.

She's wrong, obviously. And even if she's not entirely wrong, she's still partly wrong. Part of what she said is wrong. There is wrongness inherent in it, even if the words were mostly right.

He feels black and wretched, rotten to the core; and yet as he falls into a restless sleep he sees the light in her eyes when she'd kissed him, like the grey of a coming dawn.

_fin_


End file.
